zmk1962

Great report Sam. You’re a trooper turning around to head back out and give your mate a hand. Awesome reds there for Sydney mate - we’ll have to tag team drifts across that spot one day. Cheers Zoran

@saltrix Hahaha... know the spot well. Well done ... theres a nice feed there. Cheers Zoran

Champion effort Trav ... lifelong memories there ! Cheers Zoran

Hey Antony- thanks mate. Yup we definitely have to do a Browns session - just need the current to slow down so we can deep drop. Cheers Z

Yep great addition... but you gotta actually catch the fish on the day hahaha So best of luck for the beakie mate!

Hey @Fishy Firey well done and great report. Just wondering - was it you I met and had a chat with at the Parsley Bay fish cleaning tables??? I was cleaning the tub of flatties. Cheers Zoran

Congrats Lads !

Thanks Raiders for all the well wishes - so many replies ...... its certainly great to be "breathing" again ... Thanks @masterfisho... we really enjoyed the session was a great day on the water. Thanks @Rebel, she's an oldie but a goodie (and for the record we are referring to the boat!) .. its a Haines Hunter 635L with some mods. Hi @61 crusher, yup took the slimy head. When bottom bashing I typically fish two rods, one rigged with SP and a large bait like the slimey head or an occy leg - this sits in a rod holder and bounces with the boat motion, and the other rod that I hold I work with smaller baits (SP and pillie half, or slab of slimey). There was a 2.6km/h current on the surface but little to no wind. We fished anchored up in 50-60m. The bite left 3in of a 6in dropper loop and was a clean cut. If you look at my last two reports fishing the same area, we hooked a 5ft grey nurse on one trip and landed a 70cm Mako on the other. They are out there ! Thanks Rick (@rickmarlin62) .... yup we enjoyed some yesterday and just finished packaging the rest for the freezer - came out to 4.3kg of clean fillets from 12 fish. Pretty chuffed about that. Freezer full so I can now focus on other more sporty species on the next trip! Hey Sam (@GoingFishing) thanks so much. Hahaha... yes the naming convention sort of reminds me to fish on all the days of week ! ... I wish to make it a reality. Got any ideas for the remaining ones? - I guess it's going to be a race as to who fills in the missing days ! Tight-lines Tuesday, Wet-a-line Wednesday, Throw-a-line Thursday ... are now taken ...... Hey @Mmg, thanks so much... yes I am very very fortunate.... and she is sitting right next to me hahaha. I've told the story before, but I'll retell it here again: many years ago Maria and I were caught out in our first boat (a 16ft Savage open runabout) in a really bad swell off Bowen Island Jervis Bay - we eventually got back to Murrays beach with 8in of water swilling around the hull - and I asked "do we give this shit away !" and she said "NOPE ... we get a bigger boat ! ".... True story and hence the Haines. You're welcome @saltrix, they are out there... you just need to mix it up and move if they are not biting. Best of luck. Hey @nutsaboutfishing .... Hahaha very cheeky mate... I thought I answered that.. "Maria of course - seriously what were you thinking !!! " Hey Donna - Thanks so much. I take my lady fishing ANY time she wants to come along. Most of the time she out-fishes me and always gets the oddball fish. Go figure. I'm one very fortunate fella that we both love fishing and skiing - now if I could just get her to like my guitar playing I'd have a trifecta but I am not going to push it !! Skiing was absolutely awesome even though we copped the arctic vortex for the last week - where the temps at 11am were still hovering around -25C. .... Cheers Zoran

@Rebel thanks for the pointer ... very interesting read ... I'll put the link here for ease of access - https://nsw.onenation.org.au/policies/let-fishers-fish/ Cheers Zoran

Awesome report Baz. You got so much into that trip. Just fantastic! Cheers Zoran

Hey Raiders, I've been off the air for almost two months - a combination of being away on an overseas holiday and then getting quite ill - but I'm happy to report that's all behind me. Anyway, back to the fishing report, the weather gods were predicting a smile for Thursday 28/2 so my dear Mrs (Maria) and I decided have a go, get out on the water and try to re-fill our quite empty freezer....and what better way then to target our favourite bread and butter species -- flatties off Broken Bay !! We launched from Parsley Bay, and raced out to our proven flathead grounds between 6-11kmout east of Barrenjoey. I wont go through all the details as they pretty much followed my previous posts "Tight-lines Tuesday" and "Wet-a-line Wednesday"... but thats how "Throw-a-line Thursday" came to be. For this post I'll just try and tell the story through some photos and commentary. I call this one: "The LOVE of my life !" ..... Maria of course - seriously what were you thinking !!! She was a total trooper - she had not been feeling well for most of the week and was seasick most of the day, but would not call stumps until we had filled the esky. The next one: "The only place to be?" ..... We found them ! Time to call stumps - Maria's first Rat - yes she scored the oddball fish again ! ... let the fun begin ! ...and some seriously good fillets ready for tucker.... For those that need stats: Bait - salted pillies, frozen slimies and yakkas from the previous trip and soft plastics fished on a 2 hook paternoster. Water deep blue with temp 27C (seriously different to the -25C we were skiing a few weeks ago!). Action - we'd get a bite going, but then it would go dead. I was bitten clean off so there was something toothy harassing the fish. We moved several times. Lots of pickers and yakkas. The bigger flathead fell to SPs or whole mackerel heads. We boated 12 large flathead - 3 at 60cm and the rest 45-55cm. Plenty of fillets for the freezer. Cheers Zoran PS - In case anyone is interested, Maria and I spent a few weeks skiing in BC Canada which was fantastic, but I had picked up a flu virus on the flight over, got through that over a few days but was prescribed some cold and flu meds for the cough. But the cough did not go away so I was prescribed more cold and flu meds then back in Oz I was given a dose of antibiotics and more cold and flu meds .... finally after 6weeks, and an array of xrays, blood tests and swabs ... we discovered that I had no virus or infection but was actually having a reaction to the cold and flu meds - they were causing an asthma like attack (hence the cough and wheezing) and drove my blood pressure to dangerously high levels !!! So there... lesson learnt for me. I was one of those 1% that actually experienced the side effects -- so from now on if I get the flu - its gonna be whiskey sours and honey for me.

@flatheadluke, I have been following the same in different articles -- the press has been very selective in reporting on this... apparently the companies involved already did some 2D seismic testing in April 2018.... when before conducting the testing data had shown that 2D testing was also acknowledged to interrupt normal behaviours such as feeding, breeding and nursing, and cause displacement from the area (short or long term). Similar risks were documented for fish, lobster and zooplankton. ...and here on Fishraider in the latter part of last year we have been wondering and discussing our own observations of reduced fish stocks. The damage caused to fish stock and marine life in general by seismic testing needs to be understood by all voting Fishraiders and anyone with general interested in ongoing enjoyment of the marine environment that we are blessed with. I was shocked when I learnt this is the area they plan to test and possible drill for oil .... if it goes ahead, we can pretty well say goodbye to fishing between Newcastle to Sydney and out to the shelf folks... I'll quote and article below to explain 3D seismic testing.... which is a step up from the 2D testing already conducted: "Seismic surveys utilize arrays of airguns to produce powerful sound waves. Sudden releases of pressurized air bubbles create the sound source, with up to 20 guns fired at the same time, while “streamers” of hydrophones listen for echoes. Using sophisticated acoustic processing, these echoes can provide information about geological structures up to 40 kilometers below the sea floor. Seismic surveys are used by the oil and gas industry in its search for new hydrocarbon deposits and the monitoring of reservoirs as they are emptied. The “source level” of most airgun arrays can be 200 to 240 decibels (dB) (in water). There is a difference of about 60 dB when converting the sound level from water to air, so in air, the airgun sound level would be about 140 to 180 dB. For comparison, a loud rock concert is about 120dB and a jet engine at 100 feet is about 140dB. A typical seismic air gun array pulled by a ship might fire its compressed air bubbles into the ocean five or six times a minute — more than 7,000 shots in 24 hours. " Some effects on marine life: "Exposure to very high intensity noise can cause direct physiological damage, such as tissue or cell ruptures. ... this is basically a temporary loss of hearing, ... Permanent threshold shift, which is in effect permanent partial hearing loss, is also possible after incidental exposure to extremely loud sound or chronic exposure to moderately loud sounds,... At least twice (once in the Gallapagos, and once in the Sea of Cortez) whale beachings have occurred coincidentally with seismic surveys. Although the biological effects of displacement/harassment by noise are not well studied, there is some evidence of long-term hearing damage in cetaceans (based on studies of beached dolphins, both living and dead, about half of which show signs of compromised auditory systems—... There is also evidence that seismic testing can scare fish away from the reefs that are their normal habitat. And it isn't just large marine mammals that are killed or injured by seismic testing. A study published in journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, adds to the body of evidence that the loud noises produced during oil and gas exploration can disrupt marine life. For this study, researchers wanted to see what the effects are on the sea’s base of the food chain, the zooplankton. The researchers blasted airguns in the ocean off southern Tasmania, and checked zooplankton populations before and after by using sonar and nets. The abundance of these tiny creatures dropped by 64 percent within one hour of the blast, the study says. Two to three times as many zooplankton were also found dead — and the impacts were recorded as far away as 0.7 miles. " http://www.beachapedia.org/Seismic_Surveys ....But we are told the planned tests are going to be OK, as they are following best practices for environmental protection - wait for it: a) they will have government observers on board to watch for marine life (yes we pay for these jobs) but they don't explain how these observers operate overnight or in low visibility conditions as the tests are planned for 24hrs over many days/weeks? BTW, these observers must be seriously gifted people -- I'd love to take them fishing so they can "observe" and tell me where I should fish - apparently they have the gift to see really deep in the water !! b) they fire "soft warning shots " before the seismic testing begins to allow all fauna to leave the area. Seriously !!! I understand humans have learnt what a siren or warning sounds like... but when did we educate marine life to recognise that...also pity the poor crab trying to crawl a few kilometers to "leave the area" !!! Anyway, as you can see this has me hot under the collar... and wondering how is this happening under my nose. I guess its up to us to get informed and take a stance on what matters to us. Several countries (eg New Zealand) have banned seismic testing so it can be done. Cheers Zoran https://www.theherald.com.au/story/5842627/search-for-gas-more-seismic-testing-planned-off-newcastles-coast/ https://coastcommunitynews.com.au/central-coast/news/2018/12/petroleum-exploration-permit-allows-seismic-testing-off-coast/ https://www.saveourcoast.org.au/

Hey @Fab1... I've been thinking about your conundrum because like you "I'm a stubborn B*ST*RD" when it comes to solving mechanical things.....my rig is a lot heavier but I only hear a clunk (tow ball hitch moving in the tow bar assembly) when there is a major shift in weight eg. heavy braking, a sharp turn etc. otherwise it all settles to give a quiet tow. So here are a few thoughts that may help isolate the problem before you start spending cash: 1. Can you get someone else with a 50mm towball to tow the boat/trailer around the block. This will isolate the Kia (towball/towbar hitch) out of the equation. 2. If the noise is still there then you most of the way to concluding the cause is the boat/trailer... you've already double checked the towball weight, so I suspect something may be causing vibration. 2a. Are the wheels balanced? Sometimes on trailers they don't do that, my box trailer rattled like sh*t until I had the tires balanced. 2b. Can you run a simple rope test to check that the axle is mounted square to the trailer and equidistant on each side from the towball. (Run rope from centre of towball hitch to centre of LH wheel hub - this should be the same length as centre of towball hitch to centre of RH wheel hub). If they are even slightly out, the tyres would not be running on the true round face. If you have done a few thousand kilometers you may also be able to see uneven wear on the tyres (ie the inside and outer edges wear differently on the same tyre). 2c. Apologies, I can't remember all the previous posts but is the noise present at all speeds (say up to 50km/h or just at highway speeds)? If it's just at highway speeds - looking at the picture you posted previously you rig doesn't appear to be very heavy at all. If slipstream over the Kia is getting under the bow I would not be surprised if it's lifting the bow and hence significantly reducing your downward tow ball weight to the point that the the trailer is acting stern heavy, floating and clunking around on the tow ball. So you may actually benefit from having greater than recommended towball weight. 2d. Or as you have said the trailer tow ball coupling is oversized (>50mm) so you're looking at changing it to fix the issue. Anyway, I guess I am encouraging some diagnostic testing to isolate the problem. I have a 50mm towball kit on my Landcruiser and as I said, I can vouch that its a quiet tow whether I tow my boat, or my 6x4 box trailer, or a couple of other trailers I have towed. So if I was to trial tow your rig, I know we can pretty well eliminate my towball/tow hitch as a contributor - only problem is I am in Castle Hill not Campbell Town way. Maybe another raider is closer and can work with your schedule or you tow your rig to my place and we test before/after your work commitments. Cheers Zoran

.......but ..... I wouldn’t be standing on the marlin board. Cheers Z

Hi Sam, Here are some of my thoughts - BTW I lean toward comprehensive cover. My experience is changing the value down only changes the premium very marginally - so you might as well have the value as high as possible. If you say your car is worth 10-12market value have you checked what NRMA would insure it for at maximum Agreed Value? I'd guess it would be about 12-13k. Most peoples car could do with a clean - its basically the km and mechanical condition that would place that. I think you can experiment on the NRMA website with the Agreed Value Range. You are going to spend $595 on insurance anyway... so you could take a view that its really costing you: 1900-595= 1305 to insure your car for the max Agreed Value 12k. Which makes 1305/12000= 10.8% Thats what you will be paying to protect yourself from the theft of the vehicle or if it was damaged/written off. Only you can make the assessment of how likely that is. BTW usually if damage is = >50% of agreed value of an older car, they are written off. In my experience 6k of damage is NOT hard to imagine on a car these days. (My daughters Micra rolled into a car at <4km/h - popped the front plastic fender, dented the bonnet and the horn pierced the radiator = $3500 damage !!!! If it was 15km/h I reckon they would have written the car off.) In your case what would happen if you only had 3rd Party and the accident was NOT your fault. The other drivers insurance company would make a market value assessment of the value of your car and probably declare it a write off ( always puzzles me how they make a fair assessment if they are looking at it smashed) - and you would have to stand alone against the other insurance company to fight for a fair value settlement. In the meantime no car, no money. On the other hand, if you had Comprehensive on your vehicle it would be your insurance company armed with a contracted agreed value - talking on your behalf to the other insurance company. So as I said, it comes down to the likelihood of total loss - theft or accident. In my case the likelihood of total loss increases with older cars because of that write-off practice - doesn't have to be your fault. The other thing is as Baz said, I would push up the excess to the highest you are comfortable to pay in the event of an accident (that is below the write off amount) so that you bring the premium as low as possible - after all you are only insuring yourself for the total loss of the vehicle. Minor bumps and scrapes you fix outside policy as they are always below the excess. Cheers Zoran

Ok thanks so much Bear... so it looks like you are definitely not getting the level of detail that I am seeing with an active Subscription. You also do not see the Community Edits - the markers and waypoints added by other users. Cheers Zoran

Thanks Bear... if you zoom in, you should get more detail if SonarCharts are working. Your zoomed at 0.5NM (about 0.8km), I'm zoomed in at 0.2km.

I put my pencils away so now artwork from me, but I found this which should help explain.... as Rick said, motor in results in bow down. When you are solo, you need a bit of motor-in to compensate for the extra weight at the back. Cheers Zoran

Further to my above post here are two screenshots showing the area just of Barrenjoey. Navionics base charts: And with the Sonarchart active: It’s chalk and cheese really and you can keep zooming in to get more detail. But it was all there before Garmin bought Navionics. I’m pretty sure you have to Subscribe to get Sonacharts. Perhaps Bear can look at his tablet and try to activate Sonarcharts without a subscription. Cheers Zoran

That's exactly what Navionics has. They call it SonarCharts .... heres a screenshot of how you find it. You can connect a sounder and continuously improve your charts. If you also enable community edits, your sonar readings are uploaded to Navionics and combined/verified with other peoples readings to produce the next base charts - a process of continuous refinement. So again Navionics had this already... nothing new to justify the upgrade. Cheers Zoran

Good job guys ! ... nice feed ...and if you're not into bonnies nice bait next time ! Cheers Zoran

Thanks @Fishop sometimes a bit of extra detail showed up from the Sonarchart updates.... but that was part of the original product... I still have not seen anything that comes close to justifying the 250% price hike. Cheers Zoran

....guess that's why its called fishing !!! BTW, checkout my previous photos....that big orange esky is identical to MINE ... sticker and all ... Hey did you guys take it and find the schnapps in there? Seriously though, awesome report and result fellas. Cheers Zoran

@anthman given your specifications you probably need @rickmarlin62 to chip in .... I'm pretty sure Rick runs a 4.8m VSEA offshore very happily -- maybe he could compare or has experience regarding the VSEA vs the Stabi 1550 to give some pointers on what the Stabi capabilities are. All subject to how experienced you are offshore offcourse ! Cheers Zoran

Bewdiful !!! .... they really look the goods..... interesting choice of black motor on the back too 😇 !!! Cheers Zoran